“There were legitimate safety concerns. With all the equestrian units, what if horses got spooked?” said former Pasadena Mayor Bill Paparian, who introduced the measure after a particularly raucous parade that year. “This isn’t just something frivolous that lawmakers passed.”

The Pasadena city attorney’s office does not have records of how many people have been charged with disrupting the Rose Parade, but most parade-related arrests are for drunk and disorderly conduct among spectators camping along the route, according to police.

Another 1992 ordinance targets food fights and the spraying of canned fake string at the Rose Parade and its irreverent counterculture counterpart, the Doo Dah Parade.

Tortilla-tossing became a Doo Dah tradition in 1979 after owners of the now-defunct Chromos Bar pelted bystanders from a parade vehicle and the crowd returned fire, organizer Tom Coston told the Pasadena Sun.

City officials proposed the so-called Silly String ordinance to prevent damage to paint on passing cars and because the substance was difficult to remove from paved surfaces, according to city documents.

Photo: Members of Occupy Rose Parade unfurl a banner with the preamble to the U.S. Constitution at a Thursday practice run ahead of their march planned for Monday in Pasadena. Credit: Luis Sinco / Los Angeles Times